The Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study Prevention Instrument Project: Longitudinal Outcome of Behavioral Measures as Predictors of Cognitive Decline

BACKGROUND/METHODS: The Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study Prevention Instrument Project is a longitudinal study that recruited 644 cognitively healthy older subjects (aged between 75 and 93 years, 58% women) at baseline and evaluated their cognitive change over 4 years. The study was structured like a clinical trial to anticipate a prevention trial and to determine the performance of novel trial instruments in a longitudinal non-interventional trial framework. Behavioral symptoms were assessed at baseline. RESULTS: The existence of participant-reported behavioral symptoms at baseline predicted conversion to Clinical Dementia Rating scale score ≥0.5 over the 4-year period. CONCLUSIONS: The results imply that early anxiety and depression may be harbingers of future cognitive decline, and that patients exhibiting such symptoms, even in the absence of co-occurring cognitive symptoms, should be closely followed over time.